Tuesday, October 30, 2007

A New Library for Bedford

On July 24, the City Council approved $2.25 million for the purchase of the vacant Food Lion building located at 2424 Forest Ridge Dr. near Bedford Road.

The Food Lion will provide 37,000 square feet of space, more than doubling the size of the current facility. The new library will provide space for a larger collection, more public access computers and additional meeting space.

Several area cities have successfully converted Food Lions into libraries. These include the Carrollton Public Library located at Hebron & Josey, the North Denton Branch Library and the South Garland Branch Library.

The City is scheduled to close on the building on October 15. A Request for Qualifications for Architectural Design Services has been issued to solicit qualified with relevant design experience.

LibraryThing for Libraries

Bedford Public Library became the second library in the nation to add LibraryThing for Libraries to its online catalog. The new Amazon-like feel to the online catalog is sure to appeal to patrons of all ages. See us mentioned in LibraryThing's Thing-ology blog.

LibraryThing for Libraries will enhance our online catalog by allowing users to view other editions, similar books and to search for items using tags.

Other editions and translations: Links to audiobook editions and Spanish-language versions of a title. See the title Foreign Correspondent.

Similar books: Lists of similar books based on data from LibraryThing and its members. See the title The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Tags and Tag Browser: Tags are keywords and labels used by regular people to categorize books as opposed to Library of Congress subject headings which use a controlled vocabulary of predefined and authorized terms. The tags come from LibraryThing's 17 million member-added tags. A simple "tag cloud" highlights some of the more popular terms people use to describe a book. The larger a word appears in the "tag cloud" the more people have used that term to describe the title thus it is more relevant to the search. Tags with very low relevance appear very small and may be meaningful only to the person who assigned it. Take a look at this example: Cozy mysteries.

Incorporating LibraryThing for Libraries into our catalog will open up valuable new ways for patrons to find books of interest to them. We hope you enjoy this new catalog functionality.

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Adapted with permission (10/31/07) from Computerworld’s blog comments policy (www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/310).

Last updated October 31, 2007

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